"U.S. stocks ended mixed Thursday afternoon, as the dollar strengthened and investors mulled a rise in jobless claims and softer-than-expected same-store retail sales ahead of the December jobs report due Friday.
Stocks have trended upward this week, as positive economic reports have buoyed investor confidence about the recovery. Wednesday's strong report on private sector payrolls from ADP helped push the Dow to a fresh two-year high for the third day in a row.
Though investors are hoping that the government's monthly employment figures due before the opening bell Friday will also show signs of a brightening jobs pictures, they hesitated to take big positions Thursday.
"Yesterday's report on private sector payrolls was extremely strong, but today's data on unemployment claims puts the reliability of that number in question," said Dave Hinnenkamp, CEO of KDV Wealth Management. "It's crucial that the monthly figures tomorrow come in strong. Anything less than expected will be a major disappointment to the market." "[Source: cnnmoney.com]
Market Reflections - Thursday, 6th January, 2011
"Everything comes to an end or at least takes a breath, in this case it's the surge in consumer shopping. November and December together were strong but December alone was softer than November. Weather really wasn't a factor, it was the big promotions of November that made the difference.
Initial jobless claims did move higher yet the trend is very positive and points to definite improvement for tomorrow's employment report. But don't forget that jobless claims were also pointing to improvement in what turned out to be a very disappointing November. And there's plenty of anecdotal indications pointing to trouble including monthly jobs data from the National Federation of Independent Businesses which show no improvement at the small-business level.
Stocks held steady for a fourth-straight session with the Dow fractionally lower at 11,697. Treasuries have been showing a lot more activity than stocks with rates falling back from yesterday's ADP-triggered spike. The 2-year yield fell three basis points to 67 basis points with the 10-year down six to 3.40 percent.
The dollar index rose strongly for a second day, up seven tenths to 80.80. Dollar strength is often a negative for commodities where oil fell two percent to $88.33 with gold down fractionally to $1,371." [Source: bloomberg.com]
Market Focus in the US this evening
"Will ADP go down in history as hero or goat? And how will Ben Bernanke adjust the outlook to the results?" [Source: bloomberg.com]
The DJIA Index finished the last trading session Down 25.58 points; and The SPI Futures are currently: Down 5 points atm.
Gold is currently trading Down $7.50 & is sitting at US$1,371.10/oz atm [Source: Kitco] Oil is currently trading Down $1.92 & is sitting at US$88.38/bbl atm [Source: Bloomberg] The Dollar: The AUD is currently trading @ $0.9933c against the US Dollar[Source: Forex. Live]
